Shattered Glass: The 57th Hunger Games SYOT
by starrymidnight16
Summary: The Games have been continuing for over half a century, and it seems as if they will repeat forever. This year, twenty-four more tributes have been sent into the Capitol, where they will be prepared for vicious slaughter in the arena. Only one will escape victorious with their life. Rated T for violence, some darker themes, and swearing.
1. The Beginning

Adona Jardine tapped her fingers on the map of the arena, her ballpoint pen shaking as she attempted to sketch what was running wild through her untamed imagination. The bumpy train was no place for an innovator like her, that was one thing she was sure of. It was practically impossible to draw a straight line, let alone something of this difficulty. This year was her masterpiece, and what a masterpiece it was. Especially by the standards of a girl in her twenties, the design indicated that its creator was brilliant beyond measure. Or was she?

This effort, however, could be immensely tiring. Not everyone in the Capitol became the Assistant Head Gamemaker, for once rising above her overachieving sister. She could just lay her head down for a moment...

"Get up."

Adona jumped out of her chair in shock upon hearing her sister snap loudly at her. Once her vision adjusted to the bright lights fixated onto the glass ceiling, she muttered, "I haven't slept for days..." Indeed, her eyes were surrounded by heavy, dark bags, not too different than the night sky. Her heart sank- she had been out for that long? The time was wasted.

"So?" Of course Odessa wouldn't care. She was the family star, given a chance to prove herself with every heartbeat. She would return from school daily as a child to bring back countless academic awards that eventually had to be discarded. They had been cluttering up the family's garage. Adona was praised once in a lifetime, and she yearned for nothing more than to seize this moment. She would not be tossed away and forgotten.

Adona pulled some green hair out of her open mouth, sticky with drool. "I need sleep. You try running the Games without sleep..."

"The Games aren't for a week." Odessa narrowed her eyes and sneered. "Once we get back you can sleep all you want."

Adona frowned. "When do we get back?" It was quite the journey from the area they had been analyzing back to the pleasant Capitol. By train it was supposedly two or three days, depending on their speed.

"I dunno." She looked out of the window and at the blurred scenery of a forest. "We've got to be around District Seven."

Sure enough, a village met their eyes. To Adona's horror, the wooden buildings were in flames and the people were screaming in fear or pain, perhaps both. An instant later, it disappeared before the event could be properly fathomed by either.

For a few minutes after that incident, Odessa, the seemingly-perfect older girl, was silent. For once she was fazed by reality. Headstrong with an iron fist she usually was, but this struck her. The idea of equality had never penetrated her thoughts before, and even if so it was on a rare occasion, but it made her think. Easily that could have been the two of them, being burned to death in an endless forest. Or, even worse, being sent off to the arena.

Odessa turned and saw Adona, who had promptly fallen asleep again in all of her innocence. She would be the dictator.

Was it wrong?

~ o00o ~ o00o ~ o00o ~ o00o ~

 **Hi! You can call me Midnight, and I'll be writing a Hunger Games SYOT. There are, however, a few rules.**

 _1\. No perfect characters. Nobody in real life is perfect, so why should a character be?_

 _2\. Use at least three sentences for their personality, and try not to make them shallow._

 _3\. Be realistic with the training scores._

 _4\. I will try to update once a week, but please don't nag me._

 _5\. Submit your forms through PM or review, but preferably PM._

 _6\. I'd like a wide range of personalities, races, sexualities, etc. so try and make your tribute unique._

 _7\. You can have up to four tributes. First come, first serve._

 _8\. Polite constructive criticism is immensely appreciated, but no rude comments._

 **That's all!**

 **"Shattered Glass: The 57th Games" Hunger Games SYOT forms-**

 **Name:**

 **Age:**

 **District:**

 **Gender:**

 **Sexuality:**

 **Appearance:**

 **Personality:**

 **Backstory:**

 **Friends/Enemies:**

 **Reaped or Volunteer:**

 **Reaction/Reason:**

 **Interview Angle:**

 **Interview Outfit:**

 **Weapon:**

 **Training Score:**

 **Strengths: (No more than 5)**

 **Weaknesses: (At least 4)**

 **Character Flaws: (At least 3)**

 **Fears:**

 **Extra:**


	2. Reflected

"Okay, now I'm getting worried. You've been in there for days. What the Hell is wrong?"

Three months had passed since the initial arena design had been submitted, and five were remaining. Then the Fifty-Seventh Hunger Games would begin. Adona was ecstatic at this prospect, while, as usual, her sister was not.

She had taken up the habit of sulking around their mansion, playing with her jeweled facial piercings or styling her hair yet another time. Unlike the majority of the other Capitolites, however, she considered vanity to be foolish.

But now doing nothing productive was her only option while her sister became a celebrity.

Even her parents were now convincing her to apply for a job managing the Games themselves, or at least do something with the intelligence she was said to possess. She knew she was bright, she always had. However, being outdone by her sister was humiliating, especially when she was four years younger. Of course she didn't feel envy. How undignified would that be?

Odessa did find obscurity peculiar. Yes, people would nod to her on the streets, but that was nothing compared to the reactions her sister got when she finally pulled her nose out of a book. Their roles had been reversed, maybe permanently. After all, once you were an important Gamemaker, you were considered one forever. When you scored the best in your elementary classes, that was a brief fling with fame.

And only then did the older girl realize what the younger had to live with.

Adona spent most of her days cooped up in an office, but that didn't prevent her from emerging bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. How she did it, nobody knew. It could have easily been all fake. The only common knowledge about how she managed to do it was that every morning she would slip away into her room and emerge in the night.

The weight on her shoulders seemingly was not enough to stop her steady determination.

"No, nothing is wrong." She turned around, making sure to hide the devices and papers stacked on her desk from prying eyes, even if they were her sister's. "The others are working on construction and later we'll do mutts..." Her smile seemed unnaturally wide.

"Are you okay, though?" The older sister was completely willing to take the job, but didn't intend to form a bad reputation for herself. Cheating was considered a horrid act among these professionals, especially when pushed to the point of petty sabotage.

"Completely." She muttered under her breath. Was she annoyed? With attention?

How unlike her.

Adona waved. Surely her ever-so-brilliant sister would take a hint and leave. Odessa made intense eye contact with the assistant Gamemaker and nodded, before turning around and vanishing behind the door. After waiting a few minutes for Odessa to get out of earshot, she pulled out a small cubic device and tapped it several times, repeating a code.

"President Augustus?" She asked as her face was illuminated by the eerie artifical light of the device. The rest of the room was pitch black.

His face appeared before her, floating in the air. A hologram of his sneering expression lit up the area.

"You don't look well at all."

Adona bit back a snarky comment, one concerning the hideous state of his violet hair braided with gold. Even if she didn't sleep for a month, she wouldn't be able to achieve the ugliness he currently had. "I've been busy. Still able to keep up the persona, though."

He nodded, seeming briefly concerned. This faded away in an instant. "You're just the assistant. You know the primary focus will be on Amore."

Amore Glishade was perhaps the last person you would ever choose to become Head Gamemaker. She was in her forties, perhaps fifties, and had a fiery passion for killing the tributes. Amore had studied genetics for decades on end, perfecting her craft with horrific accuracy. This would make one think that she would be bitter and lethal.

Alas, she was a silent woman who was obsessed with cosmetics and alcohol. Rumor had it that the one reason she was promoted to the leader was because of that awful Gamemaker from last year, Antro something-or-other, who decided to kill off every Capitol favorite. The winner was the pesky Seven brat.

"I know, but, I mean..." She stuttered, "I'm the second-in-command. I deserve spotlight. I designed most of it while Amore, she didn't."

"Right." Augustus snapped, his face flickering for a moment. "But you need to learn."

"Yeah, but-" She protested.

"You're what, twenty, twenty-one?"

"Twenty..." Adona glared at her superior in frustration. Who ever said that mattered?

"With the appearance of a fourteen-year-old, the maturity of a twelve-year-old, and the exprience of a newborn baby." Adona balled her fists, but she couldn't do any true damage to him as a projection.

"Not fucking true..." Adona cracked her knuckles out of pure instinct.

Augustus held a cup of tea to his lips and sipped from it quietly. "Fine. Now, back to the Games."

"Okay," Adona said, pleased to be discussing something relevant. She hadn't made it this far on the path to her ambition to engage in mindless teasing, if you could even call it that. "The arena is under construction, but the genetic code of the mutts is still being figured out."

After a short pause during which Augustus lost all patience, he replied sternly, "Carry on."

"The mutts should be done in two months, and the arena in a tiny bit over four."

He nodded genuinely. This would work out. "So, it'll all be finished around," he hesitated, "Reaping day?"

"Yes, sir." Adona's hazel eyes narrowed as she analyzed the dates and figured out that the arena would indeed be completed in that general timeframe.

"Perfect." He smiled a toothy grin that was truly grotesque, and would still be even if he didn't wear a huge amount of makeup. "Let the 57th Annual Hunger Games begin."

~ o00o ~ o00o ~ o00o ~ o00o ~

 **Hey, anyone-who-is-actually-reading. So, I've been busy with school lately and you may not get many updates. However, please keep submitting tributes so I can begin to write the Reapings. Thanks. :)**


	3. Out of a Story

_District One could only ever be described as a never-ending spiral of large homes that rivaled those filling the Capitol. Many of these estates were surrounded by spiky gates and perfectly trimmed plants that came across as simple, attractive decorations. However, upon a closer look, it would be discovered that these mere objects were in fact dangerous, just like the tributes they sent to_ _the Capitol every year with an underlying message- do not ever trust a pretty face._

* * *

"Rebellion is when you look society in the face and say, 'I understand who you want me to be, but I'm going to show you who I actually am'."

* * *

 **Tiara Lambert, District One Female, age 18**

I brushed my blonde hair out of my face, which was already bitter with the cold that had fallen upon the District. It was almost a curse, how this spell of winterlike weather struck in the first days of summer, when things were supposed to be brightening up.

Maybe it was nature shaming the Reapings, the yearly opportunity where all of the idiots of the District could fight for the two tribute positions. Naturally I was one of these idiots, and of course somehow that day had came along faster than I could ever have anticipated. It seemed like only yesterday I was a fresh-faced toddler, entering the center with hope in my eyes that was quickly replaced by bitter determination. Optimism would get me nowhere, but action would.

This would be my last night here. After that, the only things that stood between District One and I were the lives of twenty-three tributes in some random arena. Gruesome, yes. But it was also fair. I really couldn't blame the Capitol for it all. After all, chances were that more people would be dying if they hadn't taken control. Twenty-three children a year was nothing next to the thousands that would be slayed. Besides, what was wrong with blood and gore?

The snow dotted my hair and clothes like dandruff. That was the only way to describe it, really. However, there was something serene about the way the flakes soared from the gray skies down towards the ground, or the tops of the luxurious villas that stood wherever the eye could see. A slight breeze brushed against my cheeks, making them sting.

From my vantage point of a small hill near the District border, I could observe the whole place. Straight roads lined with elegant manors filled the valley, and with the snow dusted on the roof of each house, it looked like a kingdom right out of a fairy tale. The diamond mines opposite my hill were glimmering with the gems and the main streets were sprinkled with quaint shops the same way snow was scattered across the expanses of pale green grass.

I took off my black hat, wiped the snowflakes off, and placed it onto my head again. It would be better to not be seen by whoever had the guts to climb up here, so I hid my face. Chances were that the vast majority of my fellow District One citizens would be in their warm homes applying their thirty-seventh layer of foundation or twentieth shade of lip gloss in preparation for the Reapings. They rarely left the central area of this District, and if they had to they would obnoxiously complain for sure.

Even the minority who didn't plan to volunteer intended to look their best for the Capitol cameras that would focus on the best-looking potential tributes. Some hoped that they would become stylists, or fashion icons. As if. Sure, the luxury District was the richest by a fair margin, but that didn't offer these random teenagers a chance to become famous. Far from it. See, if everyone in the District wore overly revealing dresses, put their blonde hair in curls, and wore enough makeup to be considered a fire hazard, then they would all look identical. It made no sense how everyone thought they were unique.

A loud bark filled my ears, jolting my mind back to reality, which was far less interesting than my thoughts at the moment. "Red, calm down." I soothed the howling dog, whose fur was a shade of pale gold against the snow. She was usually quiet. "What is it?"

I had adopted Red when I was younger, as a reward for succeeding in training, and from then on she was more loyal than any human could strive to be. In this fucked up society it was impossible to trust anyone without ending up with a knife in your back. That was the truth, and if you couldn't deal with the pain of it then you were never suited for a life here. It was survival of the fittest in the end.

Red whimpered, her legs shaking in the frigid temperature. Of course. Nobody here was used to the cold, even those of us with several layers of fur.

"Come on, let's go home." I tugged on her leash. Not like she needed one.

The place I was told to call home was instead a toxic wasteland contaminated by the intense perfumes my sister was applying. From the moment I stepped through the doorway, the scents filled my nose and stung it like a tracker jacker. Red whimpered and darted into the basement, leaving a trail of melting snow behind her.

"Dammit, Shimmer!" I yelled while plugging my nose, stomping up our ebony stairs towards her room. "We can smell you from the fucking doorway!"

Shimmer stepped out of her bedroom, some sort of hair tool in her hand and wearing a fluffy pink robe. Her gold hair was half straight and half frizzy. "So?" She batted her eyes.

"It smells radioactive." I snapped out of anger at the bitch.

"Not to me." She turned up her nose and returned to her bedroom, leaving me in the lit-up hallway. As usual, she was playing dumb.

"Where are Dad and Mink?" I asked, hoping that they were gone like she surely did. That was one of the few things we had ever agreed on.

"Out. They said they had business to do." Shimmer continued to straighten her hair and turned around.

I refused to let my flicker of happiness show upon hearing this absolution, since Shimmer was no better than them and would most likely tattle-tale like a preschooler. I instead muttered an "Oh," and strode back over towards the stairs. Finally; I was glad to be far from her. Even Red was aware enough to loathe the odors wafting from her bedroom, but comparing my sister's intelligence to that of a dog's was rude.

To Red.

Yes, it was a petty thing to say, but that didn't prevent it from standing true.

I locked the door to my bedroom, which was thankfully was down two floors in the basement. When we had moved into this house my greatest intention was to stay as far from Shimmer as possible, and with this small corner of the house belonging solely to myself, my wish was granted.

Now, far away from my sister, the one thing on my mind was the tournament that would occur today. Every year, if you were age fifteen to eighteen, you could apply to participate in the competitions that would determine the two District One representatives. We would be placed into pairs, then left to battle it out. Whichever wimp was knocked down first lost, and whoever didn't would fight another winner, and so on.

I had never entered, knowing that I would lose anyways. If you tried before you were seventeen, you were either a fucking idiot or the next Enobaria, who won two years ago at only fifteen. She was one of the few District Two tributes who could outdo those from here.

Then, the female champion and the male champion would be declared the tributes, but it wasn't rare to see some runner-up steal the spotlight. There would still be skirmishes on the way to the podium and the occasional black eye or broken arm. But whoever made it first would have no chance of going back, and the losers were forced to wait a year to try again. If they were eighteen, their time was up and they had to seek out another way to make a living. Becoming a Victor was the wildest dream of at least half of District One children, but for every hundred people who yearned to take the crown, one would become a tribute and barely any would be handed the crown.

This tournament was meant to make the volunteering process less chaotic, but if anything it strengthened the rivalries such as the one between Shimmer and I.

Despite being only sixteen, her combat skills were impressive. I believed mine to be superior, but regardless, it was difficult for anyone to admit she didn't have a fair shot at being a tribute. One arrow in the head pulled back by her fingers would fly into your head and crack your skull. It was fucking terrifying, in the name of being honest.

I took off my black coat and shook it. A small amount of snow piled on the shaggy carpet that differed from the shiny flooring of the rest of the house. I examined myself in the mirror to the left of my bed that I rarely used. My blonde hair was too knotted to be brushed, so I tied it up into a messy ponytail. Not bothering to "accent" my brown-ish eyes, I spent that time tying up my best combat boots instead. Vanity was an infectious habit that I had no intention of associating myself with. I threw my jacket onto the floor and simply wore a plain brown T-shirt and cargo pants.

Makeup that I had opened once filled my drawers as a result of my parent's dumb attempts to glamourize me. To spite them, I would hoard them down here and perhaps give some to Shimmer as a peace offering. She'd usually turn the cosmetics down, since apparently it didn't match her skin tone or clashed with her eyeliner. Why was I not surprised whenever she did this?

I hoped to get out of the house before Shimmer, and since she would refuse to step a toe outside until she had spent the previous hour getting ready, my wish was granted. My boots made slight steps in the snow, which was spread across the sidewalk like a blanket. The wind caused my ponytail to fly out behind me, and a few stray hairs somehow ended up in my mouth.

Spitting them out in disgust, I continued to jog along. It seemed as if with every step the bitter chill in my lungs grew stronger and stronger, but I prevailed. The streets I saw were deserted with the exceptions of those competing in today's tournament, none of whom I knew. I kept my eyes peeled for Dazzle and Ruby, who I knew would be there. All three of us, plus dozens of others, were vying for one spot.

We had all been friends since our first days of training in our early youth. Ruby and I met during a lesson on swordplay, and we eagerly became acquainted with each other. Before I knew it, the two of us and her next door neighbor Dazzle were a threesome of best friends. It was good that only one or none of us would be in the Games. I doubt even the pressures of life or death could convince any of us to spill the blood of another.

The question was- who would emerge victorious in the competition deciding who would be given a chance?

* * *

"Everything is grey- his hair, his smoke, his dreams. Now he's so devoid of color and he don't know what it means."

* * *

 **Admiro Shay, District One Male, age 18**

"You're going to do great!" Luxi cheered from the bleachers on the side of the training center. Her face was caked with white foundation that stretched the limits of her naturally pale complexion, and her hair was stick straight. She looked plastic like a doll.

"Thanks..." I muttered. How do you tell someone you wish they'd stop chasing your tail?

I gripped the handle of my narrow sword and used the other hand to hold my blowgun. Many of my peers were also near the edge of the rectangular arena, throwing knives or thrusting spears into mechanical hearts in preparation for the tournament. The one difference between this and the actual Games was that each weapon was covered with thick fabric to prevent injury or death. When we were sent into the arena, however, our toys were replaced with tools for killing.

The freezing weather of the previous few days had forced most of my aquaintances indoors. Not the Shays. My fathers, as always, descended deep into the diamond mines, and my sister was out and about for once. She was a frail little thing, emotionally and physically. I couldn't remember the details of why we were sent to be adopted, an "unfit family" they claimed it was, but it seemed like every moment of whatever had happened was permanently etched into her mind and she refused to speak of it. The one part I remembered of it all was Excell. She was twelve when she was sent into the arena and stood no chance, and that was my only memory of her.

I had always hated the cold. Especially today, it seemed to sink into my bones. The snow on the glass roof was an unpleasant reminder of what lay outside the comfort of a heated building. But I had to get some last-minute training in. Chances were that I would be selected to volunteer, and I literally couldn't afford to not be chosen.

The tournament began in mere minutes, and if I lost my family would not fare well. Sure, we were no District Twelve household, but poor is poor. The weight on my shoulders had caused me to buckle more than once, but I would be the tribute. I would then win. I knew it, so why was I convincing myself I would?

"Gather around!" Nathaniel Reese, the head trainer, barked. He was a stern man who had never won the Games, but easily could have had they existed when he was elegible. Still, he had been a soldier of the Capitol in the Dark Days, we had learned. As ordered, we dropped our weapons and fell into a straight line. Shit. I was too late to train beforehand. However, the price I had to pay wasn't great. What difference would a couple of minutes make in the grand scheme of things?

"Today will determine the courses of the rest of your lives." Nathaniel announced once we had fallen completely silent. Like a villian out of a comic book, he stroked his grey beard. At least thirty pairs of eyes focused on him, not including the spectators seated around us.

"It will affect each and every one of you." He continued, striding down the line and coming closer and closer to my spot on the edge. I made sure to never let my stare falter. That would show weakness. Weakness was not a trait of a tribute, a _Victor_.

"Tomorrow, two of you will be sent to the Capitol," he rasped. "And one will become a Victor. I expect no less."

"I," Nathaniel snapped, fire in his wrinkled eyes, "will not let my tributes fall by the hands of some... some..." His old age had caused him to lose some verbosity, for sure. "Amateur from the outer districts."

One girl with dyed hair chuckled. "You think that's funny, Dazzle?" His voice rose higher and higher. "You sure will when you lose to a Seven boy, like your sister did last year!" She shut up, her facial expression frozen. "Touchè." A random kid in the crowd said.

"None of you spent your lives training to die. No. You all did it to win. Every year, I have eluminated the worst of the pack, knowing that they simply could not win. But if, and only if, you follow every technique and every command I have offered you over the past decade or more, you will be crowned Victor. I guarantee it. If not, your parents get their money back." He chuckled and I felt my blood boil. That was what we were? Packaged Victors with a refund policy? A _joke_? I didn't think so. I would show them.

Nathaniel paused for laughter that never came, and awkwardly said, "Now, I have assigned the thirty-two of you into pairs. Sixteen males, sixteen females. Then, whoever wins the duel between the two of you moves on, where you will face another winner. This continues until there is one female and one male remaining who will be declared the tributes." He cleared his filthy throat. "May the odds be ever in your favor."

I tuned out for most of the partner assignments, and watched, bored, as two bitchy fifteen-year-olds fought, supervised by an assistant. The taller girl had thrown several knives towards the other, but her redheaded opponent was able to dodge them with remarkable agility as she snuck closer and closer. The devious expression on her face as she held her sword was almost enough to distract me from the precise accuracy of the knife wielder's blade. "Ow!"

She shrieked, covering her eye. As if she was removing a mask, the tall girl gasped, her makeup-shrouded eyes wide. "Oh my God! Jewel! Are you okay? I didn't think that would hurt." Because wasn't it all a game?

The small girl rubbed her other eye meekly and rose to her feet. "No. I'm fine. You win." A hint of envy was evident in her voice, but at least she had next year to go for it. This was my final chance.

"Admiro Shay and Lace Glisten!" I blinked for a second in shock, then put on a charismatic smile for the audience. These could be potential sponsors here, and after all, Lace was an average-sized boy who I could probably take. He was no Victor, but I couldn't bring myself to admit his spear skills weren't admirable. Nathaniel gestured towards a small arena surrounded by rope, where I held my dagger and blowgun. Lace's nimble fingers shook as they held his spear, for even the strongest competitors got nervous.

"Three..." A skinny man, our referee, declared.

"Two..."

"One..."

"Fight!"

I immediately threw my dagger at his neck, my muscles tense, and watched it rebound off the flesh. Lace flinched at the blunt object, but the referee muttered, "He'd still be alive." I looked at my weapon in despair. It had skidded on the metal floor, too far away to grab and too close to him.

Before I could fire my blowgun, Lace frowned and held his spear, throwing it at me. In vain I tried to block it, but fright consumed my senses. Why? This wasn't real. I wouldn't die if I lost. Hell, I could still volunteer and become a Victor with this bittersweet optimism. The blunt point of the spear hit my chest, making me lose my balance momentarily. I stopped myself from falling over, and instead listened to the announcement of my loss.

"Good job." Lace said, extending his hand. I shook it, smiling good-naturedly. Perhaps he expected to see wrath in my eyes, but it wasn't there. No hatred, nothing. This tournament really didn't mean anything in the long run.

Who would stop me from volunteering? Instead of being hopeless, I let this spark grow.

* * *

 **So** **, there's our first chapter featuring two submitted characters. I'm very sorry if they were OOC, so please say so if I can improve my portrayal of them. I've decided to not do the Reapings as it gets incredibly boring writing the same thing over and over, I would imagine. Instead I'll do twelve pre-Reaping chapters, then train rides. I was busy with school and stuff over the past few days, so sorry this update couldn't be sooner. I'll probably update every one to two weeks since school can get pretty damn hard. Here are a couple of questions-**

 **1\. Did you notice any typos, spelling errors, grammatical errors, or anything else of the sort?**

 **2\. Do you have any advice/constructive criticism?**

 **3\. Who did you like more, Tiara or Admiro, and why?**

 **4\. Who do you think has a better chance in the Games?**

 **5\. Anything else?**

 **Thanks for all of the reviews last chapter. Let's get this thing started.**

 **Also, Red Roses1000, since I can't respond to your PMs, thanks for recommending those SYOTs and submitting.**


	4. Lost

_District Nine was just there. It never was one of the Districts that stood out sharply from the others. It wasn't fully obedient towards the Capitol, but at the same time, it wasn't begging for anarchy or even rebellion. While not mistreated like the District Eleven citizens, they labored away in the golden fields of grain even if they desired to walk down a different path most lives would be offered. A few, despite this_ _, would pursue other crafts. This was frowned upon by the Capitol, but they persisted. This was the place where everybody kept some sort of secret, big or small._

* * *

"They are the hunters, we are the foxes. And we run."

* * *

 **Jayden Pine, District Nine Male, age 17**

I shuffled the tall stack of papers, visible only under the light of a candle. They crunched under even the slight weight of my fingers and were varying degrees of worn out. Some were pale and covered in fresh writing, but others were far darker than the dead grains of winter with barely legible ideas. I picked up a particularly brown sheet and chuckled at the simple prose and cheesy dialogue. I must have been twelve when I wrote what must have been intended to be a script of a play.

I remember when I was a young kid at school and we were assigned to write. What, we asked. The teacher laughed and told us to use our imaginations. Letting our minds or bodies run free was an unfamiliar concept to us. We were the children of slaves, doomed to spend a lifetime laboring in the fields. It was unknown to us why. We just blindly followed whoever led us, and that didn't change with age. Luckily, I was a member of the small "upper class" of the District, so I had an opportunity at getting an education until adulthood. But after my eighteenth birthday, the rest of my life would unfold in the meadows.

I received the highest marks in writing. When I became aware of this, several seconds were spent staring at that little number on the parchment displaying my grades. Most of the time I was mediocre, which I settled for. But this? This was something I was good at. From that point on, that was what I did with every bit of free time I could find. I'd write. I told of fantasies with no Capitol, Peacekeepers, or Hunger Games, bittersweet tragedies in the arena, or anywhere in between. I'd act them out, striving to perfect my secret passion that provided some relief from the pressures of calling an outer District home. But I avoided bloodshed the best I could in my works. It sickened me.

Every once in a while, the time would come when the pile of these scripts would grow too high. Of course, I never did a thing. It was procrastination, really. The words could flow from my quill like a river, but I could never take the steps to keep my works organized. However, if I avoided cleaning up, it would always come back to bite me later.

Once, I had lost an entire novella to the burning embers of the fireplace. I could do nothing but sigh in despair as my work blackened into charcoal. I could have tried to grab it, but that would have most likely resulted in severe burns. Nobody I knew was a good healer and I didn't believe it was worth the risk. That very day, I moved my desk to the other side of the room to make sure it wouldn't happen again. For some reason, it always made me shudder. Silly, I know, especially considering that there were starving children beyond the confines of my home while I was stressed over writing, of all things. But a book I had spent what seemed to be an eternity writing was reduced to ashes in a mere moment. And every year, the same thing happened to two of us at the Reapings.

As a writer, I have always been one to appreciate metaphors of the sort, but among the citizens of Panem, figurative language concerning the Games was all too clichè. Every month I would use my money from work to rush to the market and purchase the books of poetry sold by the numerous authors throughout the District, and there never failed to be several detailing the horror of the Hunger Games. You didn't need to be sent into them to be aware of what went on in there. Every year the arena itself would differ, but the bloodshed was all the same. Every year, twenty-three lives were blown out like candles. Those people would never see or feel or breathe ever again. They would cease to exist. No amount of will could get you past the arena. Twenty-four would promise themselves they'd win, but only one would make it. It must be terrifying not knowing who that lucky winner would be when you're tossed in, and once you died, you'd never know.

I looked out my grimy attic window, distracting myself. The less I thought of the Games, the smaller a shadow the Reapings would cast over me. Fields spread out as far as the eye could see, since this was the time of year when grains would sprout from the ground. The dust caked onto the glass proved itself to be a quality filter, protecting my eyes from the glaring sun. I saw that the meadows were nearly free from workers. Except for one. One boy was out in the fields, bent over and sprinkling glimmering water over the small stalks. I watched him wipe his brow. He turned around, probably checking for Peacekeepers. Once he saw none near him, he carefully uprooted one and nibbled on the stem. I cringed at what that could possibly taste like, and made note of how that seemed to be one of his only options for food.

The bright smile that slowly etched itself onto his face was almost enough to distract from his ribs that still protruded, even when concealed by the fabric of his shirt.

Almost.

It was terrible, how the Capitolites could sit on their asses all day and eat all the fattening foods they wanted while ignoring the thousands of workers it took to create it. They- we- were people, no different.

"Jayden?" My mother called, her footsteps pounding on the stairs. I snapped out of my trance and hastily stacked my papers back up. They were no more organized than they were before I began to clean them, I realized with a sigh. I doubted they ever would be.

I made sure to lean over, blocking the stack of papers with my body angled just right. "Hi Mom, how are you?" I had spent most of the morning isolated in my attic bedroom. I tried to treat it like any other day but that was a difficult task indeed.

"I'm well." She smiled subtly, clutching the wooden railing. "Someone's here to see you."

"Oakley?" I asked, to which she responded with a nod.

"Yup." Her voice was ironically cheerful next to the sorrow atmosphere of the whole District.

Sure enough, Oakley replaced her at the top of the stairs. He was paler than usual. Peaky. Chances were the community home wasn't feeding him well enough. Although we _did_ have plenty of food for him and even a small extra bedroom, he refused our hospitality. I had no clue why. Most orphans in the District were rabid and desperate. He was different for some reason. I hadn't seen him in weeks as it was the middle of the summer holidays, when school was let out so we could work in the fields. We were given a short break from work the week of the Reapings which I usually spent mentally preparing myself.

"Hey." He grinned as he made his way up. "What've you been writing lately?"

"Hey." I replied, smiling a bit. "Not a lot." I was a terrible liar- hours had been spent up to this point spinning a new story. I allowed him exclusively to read and comment on my work, but there were times when I preferred to keep it to only myself.

"C'mon, show me. It's got to be better than that poem you wrote about Justin. ' _His eyes are pools in the endless desert, his hair the swirling wind-'_ " He dramatically put one hand over his heart and outstretched the other, fluttering his eyes in a mockery of my acting.

I stifled a laugh, remembering that phase. Justin was a prick, for sure, but for some reason that I couldn't tell, I was drawn to him. Secretly, I still was, but spilling that would result in too much teasing. I avoided discussing him. "Stop."

Oakley laughed. "Okay, sorry. What's been going on with you, besides?"

"Um," I hesitated, my voice soft, "I've been working on the fields for food, acting out some solo plays, and that's about it." I paused. "What about you?"

"Well, I no longer fear the Hunger Games."

When he saw my widened eyes, Oakley chuckled. "Have you seen the community kids? They might as well be killing each other over food. It's actually," He trailed off and looked at the ground, "kinda sad."

A stereotypical silence lingered over us, a silence that I almost felt. All of a sudden, I became even more frightened of what was to come and spoke impulsively.

"I'm just... struggling with myself. It's hard to describe. I don't want to think about the Reapings, and I know I sound like a twelve-year-old, but I feel like there's something missing in me, like there's a big hole. I don't want to die, but I don't want anyone else to either. I don't know if I'll be Reaped, and I'm scared you'll be, and even though I'm not proud of it I'm scared Justin will be. You have a lot of tesserae, and if any of us are chosen I'll be terrified." I blurted out, on the verge of tears and struggling to keep my breath even.

Oakley tilted his head slightly, and stepped closer towards me. I awkwardly stared at him, expecting an even-more-awkward embrace as he walked past me. Grabbing a piece of parchment and a quill, he said, "Let it out," placing both in my hands.

We were silent, fully realizing the harsh possibility that this time tomorrow one of us would be on his way to the Capitol. With that, I gripped my pen and began to write for what could be one last time.

* * *

"They say we are what we are, but we don't have to be."

* * *

 **Teff Hensley, District Nine Female, age 16**

"No, no, no." I snapped after seeing my group's feeble excuse for an extra-credit project. Even with my efforts, it fell short of mediocrity. See, we were supposed to create a labelled map of Panem as it was during the Dark Days. Wouldn't that be so simple? Well, apparently it wasn't for this collection of idiots. I anxiously glanced over at the beaming group next to me, with their leader Gwenith Thornburg.

Although their map was half finished, the positions of each District and the data written on the sides were clearer than day. Without trying, Gwenith was always perfect. Brushed hair, gleaming eyes, wide smile. Her group was calm and tamed even without the presence of a teacher. After countless nights of studying, I was able to barely hold my position at the top of the class. Competing with someone like that was next to impossible.

"Look at that." My voice trilled above the steady hum of chatter in the classroom. "Should District Three be that far south? In case you haven't noticed, District Six is supposed to be right below it, and it's a pretty big place. You guys have to actually try. It isn't that hard to examine the statistics-" I held up a crinkled sheet covered in numbers and coordinates and shoved it in the face of a spectacled girl. "And use them to make an accurate map that doesn't resemble one made by a collection of seven-year-olds."

A small boy bitterly glared at me with steely grey eyes. What was his name again? "Teff, we're trying. Okay?"

"We really are."

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah, Teff."

Their murmurs of agreement grew louder and louder as my impatience grew stronger and stronger. I tapped our wooden desk twice out of instinct.

"Enough already." I declared, my voice going up an octave. "If you all aren't going to do anything but whine all day, then who's supposed to be the leader? I did not work all day then come here to have to boss you all around because you're too damn lazy to do a thing. No. I wanted to improve my grades, not do everything for you. Some people here actually care. About their future. I don't know about you, but I intend to do more than just be a farmer my whole life." I began to stutter, growing more awkward by the second. "I want to make my own path." I faltered and stared at the floor.

The whole room fell silent and I felt the gaze of every person in the class focus on me. And of course, they were everything but supportive.

"What?" I said, making eye contact with each and every one of my classmates. "You're just going to do what they tell you to?"

"They", of course, being the rest of the world.

"Teff, I don't think-" Gwenith stuttered. She fell silent when I glared at her and returned to her group. Distraught was written across her face. When was the last time she was denied a voice?

I slung my backpack over my bony shoulder and cringed once I felt the friction between the strap and my sleeve. Running a hand through my brown hair, I took one glance back at the people working with me. "Fine. Figure it out by yourself." I turned around on my worn-out shoe and strode out of the room, feeling the stare of each person pierce my back.

The walk home was a long one indeed. The richer citizens of District Nine all lived in one village in the center that contained all of our schools and markets. How I envied them. They got enough food and they didn't need to send their children to work until eighteen while we were usually sent off at age ten. I was an exception but my siblings were not. We, the poor, were scattered throughout the endless fields and seldom offered any opportunities. For that very reason, I excelled in my studies. Most teenagers partied through the night then were whipped by Peacekeepers through the day. I considered that to be ridiculous. I didn't give up and I dreamed of a better education, a better life. My mother had a job at a filthy grain processing factory, while my father and brothers left to tend to the fields every morning at dawn. The fact that they were simply able to live with that bothered me. Why not push yourself to the limits to get what you've yearned for? Why not make a name from yourself instead of just being a face in the crowd?

However, only one student in the District would be offered a scholarship to continue learning. The richer graduates and the few exceptions from the outer areas, such as myself, competed for this annually. The single most accomplished eighteen-year-old would be given a chance to study with the most acclaimed scholars in District Nine. Many of them would later claim the title of mayor. Some would even become a household name in the Capitol. Regardless, it was a status not far below that of a Victor. Call me selfish, I don't care, but I would kill for this scholarship. My seventeenth birthday was approaching rapidly and every day I would reach further and further to claim the top spot. The only problem was Gwenith.

Both of us were raised without much money to spare, and because of that, we shared the same motivations. We were always neck-to-neck in academics, ever since we were six years old and school began. We both towered over the richer kids with our grades. Our rivalry grew more intense as we matured and became aware of the matters at hand. Half the time I would come out on top, the other half she would. It was split right down the middle. Nobody knew who would receive the scholarship but everyone knew that it would be one of us. She was the only one who wanted it almost as much as I.

My leather bag slung over my shoulder, I continued along the dusty road, lost in these recurring thoughts. Despite being malnourished, this daily journey strengthened my legs greatly. The sun beat down on my back. Thankfully, I was walking east so it wasn't in my face. After passing a mile or two of grain fields, I finally arrived at the small collection of huts where I lived. They were right on the edge, close enough to the road so it wouldn't be a long way up but far enough so the dust wouldn't get all over us when bicycles or horses passed by. Beyond my home, the meadow where my family worked slanted upwards. The stalks reflected the sunlight and we were offered a flawless view of the fiery gold and pink sunset that I couldn't help but admire.

I took several steps up the short road leading to our house. As I swung the door open, the smell of cooked rabbit meat filled my nose.

"You're home early." My father remarked, cutting our dinner up with a dull knife.

I sighed, remembering why. "I'm not going to do that extra-credit project."

He looked up at me with raised eyebrows. "The one you've given up a week of your holidays for?"

I hung my bag up on our flimsy hook and took off my shoes on the stone floor. "I would still be there if it wasn't for Gwenith."

"But isn't she the reason why you're doing that project in the first place?" Him with the questions, as always.

"Yeah, but," I took off my plain brown coat, "I scored five points higher than her on our math exam. That should boost me ahead even without the project."

He furrowed his brow. "How do you know these things?"

"Well," I muttered, "she sat right ahead of me when we got them back, so I snuck a peek." I saw him frown in disapproval, so I retorted, "My nerves were getting the better of me."

My dad nodded and changed the subject. "Your mother is still at work, and your brothers are out. They said they'll be back soon. Meanwhile, dinner is ready for you."

I thanked him and slowly ate my meal, looking around at our family's monochrome photos framed and hung on the wall. In the oldest my grandparents were smiling and carrying my newly-born mother in a blanket in front of buildings I didn't recognize. Everyone was happy in all of these pictures, and I knew it was materialistic of me to think this, but couldn't I be _more_ in my life?

* * *

 **AN: I know it's been forever since I updated, but there's been school, and homework, and I'm a procrastinator, and I had a District Five chapter that I was going to publish but it was crap so I scrapped it, and ugh, I'm just so sorry. Also, Jayden was originally supposed to be a District Seven tribute so that's why his name is District Seven-y. I'm on spring break for a bit over a week and I'll try to update again. Any advice/constructive criticism is welcome, and if there are any errors I missed then please point them out so I can fix them. I hope you liked this chapter!**

 **1\. Who did you like more? Why?**

 **2\. Survival predictions?**


	5. Reality

_Any outsider would guess that District Eight was quaint and old-fashioned from its generally kind-hearted tributes and business of creating simple clothes. You would have to live there to know it was truly a concrete jungle reminiscent of the industrial age of those very grounds hundreds of years before. Every man, woman, and child was poor and starving, the vast majority working in factories that polluted the skies. It was a miserable place for most._

* * *

"Sometimes I pretend to be normal, but it gets boring. So I go back to being me."

* * *

 **Serge Roberts, District Eight Male, age 17**

"Lace!" I tossed a ball to the small girl, squinting in the bright sun that shone in my face. We were in a small park in the heart of the District, one of the few places where the grass was green and you could inhale without having to cough it up. Apparently there were Districts full of plants and animals, which I found hard to believe.

She laughed and leaped in the air to retrieve it, stumbling a bit as she landed on her feet. She was the youngest out of all of us at fourteen.

"Thimblus, coming at you!"

Thimblus lifted his arm and caught the leather ball, smiling. Without a word he threw it towards a short kid named Jute. It went flying far past him, and he seemed thrilled at the opportunity to run for it. He took off, sprinting at full speed, nearing the end of the field. Victoriously, he held the ball in the air and ran back towards us with a grin on his face.

"How about we go to Serge's house? Are your parents home?" Jute asked as everyone turned towards me.

"Sure," I responded, "No, they're off working." My father runs a factory and he says one day I'll take his place, once my parents are dead. The thought of them dying frightens me like a child but I would never admit that.

The Reaping isn't until tomorrow. We don't know whose name will be pulled out of the bowl, and it probably won't be one of us, so we try not to worry. However, we can't control how we feel or change a random selection. So we try to push it down.

I hesitated a bit before nodding. "Sure, why not?" I grinned sheepishly, my reddish hair in my face. "I've got nothing to do."

In reality, I had quite a bit of homework I needed to get done. But what importance was that when I could actually have fun in this hellhole? My District sucked. That was the the cold, hard truth. We would work in factories all day, with just a few years to get educated. Our skies were grey, not pale blue like the ones I'd been told of.

The spoiled kids of the Capitol and District One could get whatever they wanted at the flick of a wrist. Meanwhile, the people of the outer Districts got nothing. They'd work. Just work, supplying the Capitol. No matter how many propaganda banners they raised, no matter how wide the smiles of the citizens were as they greeted us warmly, we all knew they were fake. It was clear to anyone, absolutely anyone with a lick of common sense.

I realized I'd been thinking again. The Capitol never promoted thinking, which was why I liked it. "Serge, hello?" Jute asked, snapping me out of my trance.

"So..." I muttered awkwardly. "I'll lead the way?"

"Sure." Lace replied cheerfully, skipping along.

I walked leisurely on the sidewalk, glancing back at the park. Outside of the refuge it provided there was nothing but countless buildings and busy streets snapping us back to reality. Bicycles, wagons, (like in the days before Panem) and the occasional car crowded the road, a constant buzz of noises in the air. Factories released exhaust into the sky. Peacekeepers patrolled every corner, giving the place a jail-ish feeling.

As I lead our group through one of the main streets, looking both ways to make sure we wouldn't get knocked down or even crushed by a vehicle, a Peacekeeper on the other side yelled at us in a barking tone, "Where're you going, kids?"

I scowled. It didn't make much sense to say that when we were already in the middle of a dangerous street. The sign across from us displayed a person walking- we weren't out of turn. I quickened my pace, and my friends, muttering, followed.

We made it to the curb and on cue, the the travelers on the main street carried on. I was suddenly face-to-face with the Peacekeeper, able to see a pair of large eyes under her helmet. I looked her in the eye as we were exactly the same height. "Sorry, ma'am." I addressed her as I would a schoolteacher for no particular reason. Repeating myself, "I'm sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused but we were only trying to get back to my house."

Thimblus suddenly appeared worried, the rest of the group with frowns on their faces. What had I done? Like, seriously? I had just been polite. Meanwhile the cool kids were vandalizing Peacekeeper trucks and spying them at night. "Alright, kid, move along then." She snapped but somehow her tone was gentler than last time.

The District was alive with sidewalks filled with pedestrians ranging from classily dressed business owners with neat hair and even some jewelry, greedy just like the Capitolites, or street kids wearing hats and ragged clothes, just returning from factory shifts or school, real as real could be.

I was wary of the Peacekeepers, who were seemingly everywhere. I hid my feelings towards the Capitol yet that didn't stop me from being a bit paranoid around them. As usual, they didn't pay much attention to a group of average teenagers that weren't up to anything visible.

I didn't even need to look at the street signs to remember which apartment was mine. I'd lived there for years. We rounded a corner and approached a wooden door, simple and plain. Normally we would talk along the way but we were traveling during rush hour, and even being distracted for a moment could lead to broken bones and a poorly timed hospital visit. District Eight was always chaotic.

Single file, we walked through and strode up the stairs. They creaked since they were only thin and wooden instead of sturdy stone. My legs were accustomed to the five-story climb, which was quite a lot for most people but easy for me. Finally, we made it to the door. I opened it and allowed the rest of us to go through.

My house was small but cozy. Perhaps that's why others liked it so. I turned on the light and the room flickered into view- an old grey couch in one corner, a small kitchen with rusting appliances in the other. Immediately, we all raced towards the couch, hoping for the best seat. One of the cushions had several undesirable burn stains on it, and another was greatly worn. The third was perfectly fluffy and the most desirable. Jute, the fastest one out of the group, leaped into the air and dived onto the couch, landing on the softest cushion.

"Screw you." Lace rolled her eyes playfully as she darted towards the couch.

"Screw you." Jute imitated Lace but lifted his voice an octave, sounding like a child. Lace promptly landed next to him on the soft cushion.

"Real mature." She widely grinned.

Thimblus and Corduroy, upon taking their shoes off at the door, raced to get to the second-best spot on the couch. Thimblus scowled as he was forced to sit down uncomfortably crammed between Jute and the arm rest. I sat on the floor in front of them, facing all four. "Well, you guys wanted to come here." I said. "What do you want to do?"

"Truth or dare!" Lace chimed, lifting her chin.

"Objections...?" I asked, everyone. Thimblus looked a bit hesitant. Perhaps that was because one time, Lace had dared him to kiss me on the cheek and he obliged, however reluctantly. At the time we had recently broken up after dating for a few months but there were no grudges held. That didn't prevent it from being awkward.

"Ok." Jute said, his facial expression clearly showing that he was up to something. "Thimblus, truth or dare?'" He turned bright red at the prospect of being called first.

"Truth...?" He hesitated.

"Would you rather kiss me or Silk Stratton?" I flinched at the mention of Silk. We were dating for quite a while. I broke up with her since she was far too ditzy and somewhat annoying. Ever since then, she'd been angry at me and was left prejudiced. Granted, she was one of the prettiest girls I knew, but that was far overshadowed by her newfound coldness and arrogance.

"You." Thimblus took a few seconds to answer quietly. "I dislike Silk."

"Points for honesty." Jute retorted, a mischievous glint in his eye,"But why? She has tons of of guys after her."

Thimblus turned tomato red from his previous shade of strawberry. "Er... the same reason Serge broke up with her?"

I was slightly shocked when he said my name- we rarely mentioned our past relationship, but Jute nodded in understanding. "Called it," He laughed. "Besides, who doesn't want a piece of this?" He pulled down his sleeve and flexed his practically nonexistent bicep.

"Oh, put it away." Lace grabbed his arm and pulled him off the couch. He fell on the floor where I sat, toppling me over. We began to laugh. "Your turn, Thimblus." I grinned at him.

"Corduroy?" He asked, brushing his dark hair out of his face.

Corduroy was the quietest out of our group of misfits for sure, even quieter than Thimblus, which was saying something. But today he seemed determined. "Dare," He replied confidently.

"I dare you," He hesitated, "To spray paint the Peacekeeper's trucks."

We all fell silent, even Lace, who had been cheering before.

"That's like, really dangerous." Lace stuttered. "He could get arrested, or even killed." Jute nodded in agreement and I found myself doing the same. Nobody did that except for the crazy rebel kids who would set fire to buildings and wreck havoc upon everything they saw whether or not it harmed anyone.

"No, we'll be fine. The Reapings are tomorrow, a ton of people are doing this today. Let's do it." A manic glint was in his eyes, not unlike Jute's.

I ignored my stress. He was right, the Reapings were tomorrow and we deserved to have some fun, we never caused trouble.

"Let's do it."

* * *

"Everyone is entitled to their own sorrow, for the heart has no metrics or form or measure. And all of it… irreplaceable."

* * *

 **Nadine Arkensaw, District Eight Female, age 18**

 _It was a typical day. I had just gotten home from school and as usual, I was making my way towards the mailbox. I pulled the lid down and grabbed the papers inside, cramped together between the metal walls, expecting anything but what was to come. One letter stood out to me and my heart momentarily stopped as I read the return name with no address: Lacie Arkensaw. I couldn't breathe or even read any further. How?_

 _A year had passed since I saw her the last time. I was fifteen and she was sixteen. After she hadn't been present at dinner, I found her sobbing in her room with a suitcase in hand._

" _Lacie?"_

 _She looked up at me, her once-lovely eyes red. She mumbled my name so softly it was nearly indistinguishable from my fidgeting._

" _What's wrong?" I felt panic crash over me like a wave._

 _She whispered something else, something I couldn't hear, and walked away with a suitcase just like that._

" _LACIE! WAIT!" I grabbed her arm, a waterfall of tears streaming down my face and my throat tightening. What was going on?_

 _She struck me in the stomach with her elbow, not saying a word. The expression on her face said enough. The pain in my gut didn't compare with the pain in my heart, and even that was nonexistent next to my anxieties. I needed to know what was happening, and why. Just the day before Lacie was picture perfect and smiling genuinely. She clutched her suitcase and yelped as something fell out. I saw it right before she snatched it up again. It was a bag of the drugs we were taught to avoid in school. My sister, an addict, I realized, laying on the creaking bed, too hurt to move or even scream at my parents to help her. Yes, many people her age were gradually becoming addicts but never Lacie._

 _I never saw her again._

 _My parents told me what happened the next day. She slept with one of the most notorious drug dealers in the city after being his partner in crime. It wasn't just him who would steal money from purses or pockets, she would too, and it wasn't just him who sold dope to the kids on the streets, it was her too. My mother had been out doing business, and on the outskirts of the city she saw them in an alley, counting money, and lots of it. Parts of the situation were obvious but still my mother got a lot of information out of her. That day, she was gone. The day after, I was too._

 _I closed my eyes, going back to the present, and opened the envelope. It was made of white silk, which no average person in District Eight could ever afford. Sales must have been going well._

 _Opening my eyes, I saw Lacie's familiar messy script. The consistency somehow caused me a small amount of relief that was quickly overshadowed by what was written. She was straight to the point. No apologies, no regrets, which I had to admire about her, but at the same time it frightened me._

 _She was dying. It took a moment for it to sink in, but it did. She should've known all of those drugs would make her sick, she should've known she was with a bad crowd. My heart grew heavy, and I felt the all too familiar sting of forming tears behind my eyes. Blinking them away, I continued reading the letter._

 _Not only was she soon to be gone, she left a reminder. What kind of reminder, you may ask? A child. Nineteen, sick, and just giving birth to a baby. Barely three years before she was your average girl, but so much more to me, and now she was changed for the worse. Why did this have to happen?_

 _I steadied my breathing as I read the next part of her note. She had a baby girl with the drug dealer, and she didn't trust him with her, so she was begging me to take care of her. I reread it over and over._ "Nadine, I know this is too much to ask, and I'm so sorry for making these decisions and being a terrible sister, but he can't raise a child and you could, and the orphanage seems hellish, so please, would you raise her?" _Over and over. I couldn't process it and I felt a weight in my churning stomach as I continued to read. She said she'd leave the baby and a small amount of money in a vault the next day, which seemed too risky, and if I didn't take her she'd be sent to the orphanage._

 _I couldn't let that happen to my niece._

 _The next day it was bright and sunny, ironically enough, when I went to the address she called her own. My boyfriend at the time, Mike, and I lived together in a small apartment, which is where I went right after my sister left. I couldn't bear to see my parents again. We unlocked the vault with the code she gave us. I glanced up at him, and he nodded. Slowly I pulled the door open._

 _First I saw the woven basket, then I looked at the baby's face. She was young, maybe a few weeks old, with dark skin and a chubby face just like Lacie. She was wrapped in soft blankets and sleeping peacefully, her eyes shut. I gently lifted the handle of the basket, being sure not to wake her, and saw what was beneath- a tall stack of money. Holding the baby with one hand and the cash in the other, Mike shut the vault, and we left._

 _The next few weeks passed in a stressful haze. I didn't know if Lacie was dead or alive at any given moment. I didn't know when she died, or if she died at all. It didn't seem like something my sister would do- faking it- but after getting involved with people like that it was hard to tell._

 _Somewhere along the line, we got engaged. Of course I said yes when he proposed, I loved him. Marriage before we were safe from the Reaping was generally frowned upon by the District. We didn't care. Besides, most young adults weren't raising a kid they couldn't call their own. We rarely mentioned Lacie and if anyone asked, we adopted the girl. Her name was Satin, which we decided on. Lacie never named her._

 _Life went on, and only the day before my final Reaping I realized I had grown up too soon._

"Nadine?"

I snapped out of my flashback and back into the present, where I was sitting at the dinner table, my knuckles pressing against my cheek and elbow on the table, surely leaving visible marks. I looked up, my eyes adjusting to the newfound light.

Mike was grinning at me softly even though he knew what I was thinking, hoping I was fine.

"You alright?" He asked. Despite the smile on his face, his dark eyes gleamed with the same old worry. I sighed, wanting to confide in him but not wanting to be a burden.

"Just thinking about, you know," I said, looking him in the eye. "Lacie." There, I let it out and made it as quick as possible. The name seemed to burn in my throat. For years I had been saying it until it fell silent. I rarely mentioned her and when I did it somehow felt powerful.

Mike nodded in understanding. "If you ever need to talk I'll be here."

I smiled despite the pain in my cheek. "Love you." I felt lucky. Flawed he was but still amazing.

He replied, "I love you too."

Our dinner was simple- spaghetti with sauce on cheap plates. The noodles were a bit stale but tasted good regardless. I cleared my plate far quicker than he did, mainly because I was stressed and it would take a thousand plates to satisfy the butterflies in my stomach. Naturally I was a rather anxious person. But it was the night before the Reapings. Even though I was an adult, with a fiancee and a child, I still couldn't stop thinking about them. It was my last year of eligibility before I would be free to live my life, maybe one day get over Lacie. I would go to the main square, close my eyes and ears when two kids were called, and try to forget. Mike was safe at nineteen and next year I would be too. That was that and the Hunger Games would never be a big part of our lives.

As soon as my plate was in our dishwasher I went up to Satin's room. I dreaded the day she would become a slave to the Capitol, fearing the Reapings and knowing her innocent life could be taken from her at any given moment. She was so young. In eleven years, she could potentially be dead in the arena. That thought horrified me even more than the idea of me being Reaped tomorrow. If she was Reaped, then I wouldn't know what to do. It wouldn't be the same for sure. She was practically our child, maybe not biologically but emotionally.

I opened Satin's door enough to see her but not enough to wake her with the light to find her in her crib, sleeping peacefully with pink blankets wrapped around her just like the day we met. I leaned down and kissed her forehead, brushing back her curly, dark hair to do so, and with that I went to my bedroom.

The sun was setting upon the District, which I saw through my window. Our room was nicer than most places in our District for sure- there were chemicals in the sky above us yet we had a warm bed and running water, both a rarity here. Many had nothing to drink but the polluted garbage in the wells. I was grateful for what I had and if it wasn't for the Capitol, every starving kid on the streets relying on tesserae to get them through the year would have something to live for.

* * *

 **AN: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! :) As usual, any constructive criticism is helpful. If you hated it, don't just say that, tell me how I can improve.**

 **Who did you like more, Nadine or Serge, and why?**

 **Who could you see lasting longer in the arena?**


	6. Broken Walls

_District Ten's weather was a force to be reckoned with. The heat made it seem hellish, the air teemed with bugs. Just a day in this place would make your skin flare bright red. But like how straining muscles to their limits makes them stronger over time, eventually the people in the livestock District would grit their teeth and tolerate it just like all of Panem did with the Hunger Games. As the third poorest District, the only reason they weren't rebellious was simply because they succumbed to hardship without a word._

* * *

"And all the people say, 'You can't wake up, this is not a dream. You're part of a machine, you are not a human being. With your face all made up, living on a screen, low on self esteem so you run on gasoline.'"

* * *

 **Jackson "Jack" Kin, District Ten Male, age 11**

I had always been different from the other kids.

Now, you're probably thinking, "What a basic pre-teen, rebellious and thinking they know it all."

But I know I don't know it all and I don't remember ever being rebellious. The price of that was being whipped for everyone to see. The stabbing feeling I got when too many people looked at me was worse than any weapon the Peacekeepers could bring out. The only thing I ever liked about school was getting to read and write and do math, not the social part. I was always one of the shortest kids in my grade, if not _the_ shortest, and when all of my peers grew taller than I'd ever be, naturally I was teased a bit. And when I wasn't being teased, I was cast off and ignored.

I loved to draw and write, fantasizing about the world before Panem instead of living in the now. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from back then. Although it had been almost a century since the world was peaceful, I liked to pretend that was my reality. I imagined technology beyond my wildest dreams and a place everyone was free to pursue any job or any life they wanted.

"Jack!" I heard my mother yell, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Jani is taking you and Cadi out!"

I sighed. Since we lived in the center of District Ten where there were shops and even restaurants, my family always tried to take me somewhere to be social. They said it wasn't healthy to be locked up all day. Every time I wouldn't put up a fight but instead I'd stare off into the distance and daydream. Most of the time it wasn't even intentional. I just always had a hard time focusing even when I tried.

Without a word I came downstairs from my bedroom, shutting the creaky door behind me. "You alright?" She asked, worry evident in her eyes. In an attempt to cheer me up, she said, "You know, it's your birthday tomorrow. After the Reapings we can get some cake, have a little party."

I remembered that the Reapings were the next day, which seemed far more significant than my birthday. For years the prospect of going into the Hunger Games scared me. As if being on national television wasn't bad enough, you were probably going to die slowly and painfully by the hands of people who trained for this. Every year on my birthday, I was reminded that I was even closer to the possibility of being Reaped by watching two of us being sent away to die. It wasn't exactly the best present.

My name was only in the bowl once. Usually community home kids and orphans with their names in dozens of times were Reaped but that didn't prevent me from being extremely worried. I never knew my father. For all I knew he could be dead, so maybe that made me half an orphan. Usually if you had one or both parents dead you wouldn't lead a very good life.

There was a photo of my dad by the fireplace and it looked strangely familiar, like I'd seen him before yet couldn't remember where. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me. That happened quite a bit.

"Jack." She looked down at me. "You're daydreaming again." She wasn't wrong.

"I'll go with them." I muttered softly, wrapping my arms around her torso. Cadi was nice. She could be annoying, but when I'd talk to her about my theories about the world before Panem she would listen. Most people laughed and ruffled my hair. If they were kids at school they would punch me.

My mom seemed slightly surprised, for I rarely initiated physical contact with anyone. After something that happened to me years before I didn't like it. The experience was something fuzzy, and I couldn't decide if it was real or a dream.

Our house was small. Out several miles where there were farms, everyone had plenty of room. It would take a long time to walk to your next door neighbour's house while where I lived we could hear them through the flimsy walls if they talked loud enough. That meant we didn't get too much privacy, but I had a room to myself and that was better than nothing.

I heard the familiar click of the front door being unlocked. Jani swung it open and wiped her boots on the welcome mat. "You coming?" She asked, grinning. Her teeth were crooked like mine.

"I am." She was surprised, it was clear from her expression. Since I was anxious about the Reapings I saw no harm in getting some fresh air. Perhaps that would calm me down the same way imagining the past did.

Jani nodded, brushing her black hair out of her face. "Alright, come along."

I stumbled over towards the front of the house, lacing up my boots. "I'll be right out here," she said, leaving. I finished tying the laces, stood up, pulled the door handle open, and stepped out.

The heat of the air hit me suddenly. The Reapings took place in early summer, which was the warmest time of the year by a fair margin. I had grown accustomed to my temperature-controlled house with rusty fans when it was hot and a fireplace during the short, cold months. Luckily, I was wearing shorts and a plain shirt so it wasn't that bad.

Jani and Cadi were waiting for me on the sidewalk in front of the door. I went down the steps, sulking. The bright light was a lot for my sensitive eyes.

"Hi Jack." Cadi said, squinting in the sun. "So, where do you want to go?" She asked Jani and I.

Jani replied, "I was thinking the lake? Like we do every year?"

I remembered the lake. When I was little, once a year we would walk to one of the only lakes in District Ten and go for a swim, or just watch the sun reflect off the water. I enjoyed it until it happened.

"Oh, I forgot." Cadi grinned. "Of course. Jack, you alright with that?"

For once, I was focused on a conversation. It made me proud. "Yeah, let's go."

We walked across District Ten. The whole time the two girls were talking about one thing or another, who liked who, what they would do during the break, how many times their names were in the Reaping bowls. Occasionally they would try to pull me into the conversation but I declined.

They were nice, don't get me wrong, but as you already know, I don't like being social. I got nervous when a Peacekeeper with a gun asked us where we were going, but when we answered he said it was fine. People went to the lake a lot on days off. We'd be shot if this were a working day. It's common knowledge.

After a little while, we made it. It was circular, surrounded by a thin strip of sand and stones which in turn was surrounded by itchy yellow grass. A dock stretched out from one point on the circle to about halfway through the lake. The scene was like a bit of District Four was right here.

"Race you to the dock!" Cadi squealed, darting towards the coast, her muddy boots leaving footprints as she leaped across jagged rocks.

"I don't think so!" My sister leaped over the edge of the grasses and sprinted towards Cadi, catching up. I walked towards them slowly, since they were far ahead and I didn't want to get lost.

Only a few people were at the lake. Peacekeepers were all around, making sure nobody did anything suspicious. A few teenage girls were sunbathing and looking at Jani and Cadi with disgust. They didn't do anything wrong. A few families were walking around the beach, hand in hand, while more chaotic Reaping-age boys and girls swam in the lake. There was one man by the grass, warily looking towards the Peacekeepers, who unnerved me. I began to jog towards the dock where my sister and her best friend were arguing.

"I totally won by a mile!" Cadi rolled her eyes and tossed her dark hair.

"You got a head start, dummy, and I still made it first." Jani snapped but still was smiling.

"Whatever."

"So you admit it- hey, Jack." Her tone switched from pride to concern. "Are you okay?"

Was I? As she looked into my eyes I couldn't help but feel stressed. The weight of the Reapings was pressed against my chest and would only be taken away when someone else's name was pulled out. Besides, despite the sunny weather, I had a sick feeling about that man I saw.

"Jack?" I focused back on her.

I hesitated. "I'm alright. I'm just stressed out because of the Reapings."

They looked at me with sympathy, which consecutively made me feel better and irritated me.

"That's normal." Jani remarked. "You've probably forgotten, but my first year Mom basically had to drag me over. I only stopped fighting back when she said the Peacekeepers would find me."

Cadi nodded. "When I was twelve, I cried for nights before the Reaping itself. It was insane." She laughed in an attempt to lighten the mood, like a knife adorned with lace. It didn't work.

I supposed it was normal to feel this way, but I still felt like something would go wrong.

* * *

"Your eyes, they shine so bright. I want to save their light."

* * *

 **Gabi Wendall, District Ten Female, age 15**

The community home was basically Hell.

There was no denying that truth. The only purpose it served was a painful reminder of my past and the reasons I was here. See, what the dumbasses over in the Capitol don't get is that if you leave a bunch of poor people together, with limited amounts of food, water, and shelter, they're going to fight. They're going to steal. It's their instinct to survive finallyacting up. When my father was caught stealing, not for himself, but for my brother and I, he was hanged. Dead within the minute.

It was unfair, he was never violent or selfish. It was the only crime he ever committed but they just had to kill him because of it, and since nobody could take care of me and my brother Buck, we were sent to the community home with dozens of other kids suffering the same fate as us.

My situation was already bad enough. Buck protected me, one of the youngest kids in the community home, but we still faced trouble all the time. Orphans from around eight all the way to eighteen were crammed in just a few rooms with only a bit of food and a somewhat neglectful caretaker. Just three years after we were sent there, too soon, he was Reaped for the 51st Games. He was thirteen and from a poor District, so the odds were not in his favor.

I had hope- just the last year Haymitch Abernathy, a kid from District Twelve of all places, had won. It was a massive upset, since the boy was sixteen and scored a seven. He was expected to make the final ten or so.

Buck wasn't so lucky. He died in the bloodbath by a Career's hand after he promised he'd be back. No underdog won that time- the mad girl from District One took the crown, avenging her sister who died in the finale a year before.

For days after that, I locked myself in the cupboard and cried. Ten years old, starving, and sick of living. I had nobody, nothing. I had lost that will to live I mentioned earlier, succumbing to the horrors of the world.

Then I met Ryker, a boy whose parents had just died, once I grew up and became stable again. He approached me and followed me around, which annoyed me greatly at first. Then he grew on me. He wanted to be friends, and he felt sorry for me after Buck fell in the bloodbath. I looked in his eyes and saw the innocence that was snatched away from me, so I took him under my wing, promising to myself to not let the spark die. He was eleven and I was thirteen. I knew how to survive in the community home and I wanted to help him.

It was something I hadn't felt for quite a while, wanting to protect someone besides myself. I had built walls around my heart so nobody could get close enough to break it. I could avoid the pain of loss by simply not getting near people if that made sense. But maybe it was the foolishness inside me that drew me towards him.

Now I was fifteen, two years older than my brother was when he died, years he'd never get to experience. That was a scary thought.

It was the day before the Reapings, and things were more orderly than usual. This was probably because we all knew there was a great chance two of us would be leaving. Everyone I knew had at least fifty slips in the bowl according to rumors, while the District average was around ten to fifteen. The odds weren't in our favor.

I sat at a flimsy table in the cafeteria alone. My reputation as a cold and callous person didn't exactly boost my popularity. Nobody was intimidated by me but at the same time nobody really liked me. I hadn't gained any empathy when Buck died, after all, the female tribute last year stole the show. Most people pretty much forgot he was my brother even when I disappeared after his untimely demise.

His partner was a typical bitch- pretty, dumb, rude. All of the people here were a bit afraid of her, so to them she must have been more memorable than him. After all, he was second to die while she lived off sponsor gifts until the final eight when the Careers found her.

Over the years he was here, Ryker grew more confident and comfortable in his own skin as I grew less and less of both. He would just do things while I would hesitate for too long. They say opposites attract and ascending is the opposite of descending. He was kind and funny while I was anything but. I couldn't let it go so instead I pushed the truth down further.

Ryker sat down next to me with a loaf of bread and two chunks of meat. "Hey Gab." He grinned, ripping the bread in half and handing it to me.

"You know I don't like that nickname." I rolled my eyes and snatched one piece of bread out of his hand. "What is that?" I asked, looking at the meat that I didn't recognize.

"Chicken. It's gotta be because of the Reapings tomorrow. They're fattening us up for slaughter." He ripped a piece of meat off the strip and chewed it with his mouth open. "Want some?"

On second thought, perhaps caution was a virtue. His bluntness wasn't exactly smart.

"Sure." I took some from his plate and placed it on the table in front of me. I hadn't bothered getting trays or silverware- considering how many people used them and how often they were washed, they weren't much cleaner than the wood and our hands.

"Don't say that," I whispered, my voice soft so I wouldn't be heard. "It's too honest. Too rebellious. We have to act like nothing's wrong."

Ryker shrugged casually, not even concerned. That bothered me a bit. "Are you going to eat that?" His voice was muffled by his chewing as he looked at the bread he gave me.

"No." I widened my eyes and overpronunciated the word sarcastically.

He peered up at me, bewildered, and began to reach for it slowly.

"Of course I'm not going to let you have it! We get practically no food!"

Ryker looked confused and stopped chewing momentarily, facing me. "But you said-"

"It was sarcasm." I sighed, sitting back and looking at the wooden ceiling, hearing the hum of chatter from all around the room. "What in Panem am I going to do with you?" He never took my satire seriously. If he did I doubt we'd be friends.

He hesitated, thinking about it. "Bribe the Peacekeepers to put my name in extra?" A sly smile crept across his face.

I took his hat off his head and hit him playfully with it. Somehow, that just made me think of Buck again. "I wouldn't do that to you." I said, handing him the sorry piece of fabric again and lifting up my bread to take a bite.

"Attention, attention, everyone." Matilda Roseworth, the home's keeper, silenced the already-quiet room with a wave of her hand. I stuffed my food in my mouth and listened.

"As you know, the Reapings are tomorrow." A collective groan erupted from all around the room.

I put my fingers in my ears and whispered to Jack, "They're all so immature, every last one." There was no point complaining about the Reapings, it wasn't like that would stop them.

Miss Roseworth clapped loudly. "Enough. Be quiet." She waited for everybody to calm down, then continued. "Since we have been running alarmingly low on supplies for you all to stay nourished, we will require each of you to take three more tesserae. Your names have already been registered. By the end of today, you will pick the bread and oil up at the Peacekeeper Headquarters and hand it in to me." Her voice became quieter. "I'm awfully sorry, but this seems to be our only option."

Nobody was too surprised but still, protests and chaos ensued. One boy who looked at least seventeen yelled, "Why don't we just work? Instead of risk our lives?" He and his friends pounded their fists on the table, nearly breaking it.

I cringed and turned my head towards Ryker. "Well, I mean, two of us were going to be Reaped anyways. There's no stopping that."

Ryker's eyes lit up as they always did when he had an idea. "I could always be a farmer or something. And earn the food."

"Sure, kid." I muttered. It could happen, but you needed money to buy the land to farm on.

He nodded in reluctant agreement as we watched Miss Roseworth leave the cafeteria. "Yeah, anyways, I'm thirteen and I've got my name in forty times. All of the older kids had been bragging about how theirs were in seventy, which I'm not sure is a record high or low."

I hesitated. "Probably low. I'm in there fifty-four times." Against my will, of course, if I had my way I wouldn't take any tessera. The food wasn't worth it at all.

Ryker took another bite of his meal. "Yeah. All of the rich kids are entered once or twice and freaking out over it." A twinge of resentment was clear in his voice, which was a sharp contrast from his usual optimism. I couldn't help but be a bit surprised.

"So," I tried to calculate how many more slips we'd each get in the bowl in my head. "One tessera is one extra slip, so I'll have fifty-seven and you'll have forty-three." Despite never having attended school, Buck taught me basic math when he was still alive.

For many, discussions of the Reapings and Games were forced and awkward. Not for us. We were poor and used to watching people we knew being sent away. Granted, that didn't compare to actually being in the arena.

However, I saw once-tough teenage boys being reduced to puddles of tears when their names were called, girls who had just had their birthdays tugging at their skirts and feeling their throats contract.

Witnessing these things hardened you, and it could be argued it turned your heart to stone.

* * *

 **AN: Hey. Just noticed I have a habit of ending POVs with a dramatic sentence. Whoops.**

 **I know I rarely update and I'm so sorry, but I go to a really demanding school where we get a ton of work. Once vacation starts in early June I'll have a lot of time on my hands to update around twice a week. I'm hoping to get the tributes in the arena by September.**

 **If I haven't written any of your tributes, I'm sorry, but it has to do with who will get POVs when. The tributes introduced earlier will be given POVs during the parade and first day of training and the others later on. I've got it all planned out.**

 **I know who dies in the bloodbath and some may surprise you. Some, to put it bluntly, won't. I've also narrowed it down to a few potential Victors, and I hope to decide soon! If any characters seem one-sided, chances are I've planned to develop them well throughout the story, only for them to meet their ends.**

 **I really don't want to be -that- person, but I only got four reviews on my last chapter and my views have been decreasing. If you're reading, please write a review! The longer the better, in my opinion. And I'm not guaranteeing anything, but if you review, your tribute(s) will have better odds of winning or at least making it far.**

 **Also, don't forget to vote on my profile poll! The tributes will be thrown into the arena you choose.**

 **Who can you see lasting longer?**

 **Who do you prefer, and why?**

 **Next up on "Shattered Glass", we're taking a trip to District Three! Buckle your seatbelts and enjoy.**


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